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September 7, 2007

Long-Awaited Debut

On August 28, 2007, the R/V Knorr left the WHOI dock to test a new long coring system. The test cruise is a major
milestone and represents a tremendous achievement for a project that
has required considerable engineering ingenuity. The long core system will
extract 45-meter (150-foot) cores from the seafloor nearly twice as
long and five times as heavy as existing coring systems in the U.S.
fleet. Its development required the installation of approximately 50 tons of steel
reinforcement on the ship to accommodate
the instrument, which weighs more than 30,000 pounds. The system also
required the development of an extremely strong, custom-made synthetic
rope thateven with a 35,000-pound load hanging in 15,000 feet of
waterwill stretch less than 10 feet. (Photo by Dave Gray, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)